In my opinion there’s nothing more delicious than a marshmallow-cheeked baby with Michelin Man arms and chunky monkey thighs.
Unfortunately, my penchant for chubby infants is one of the reasons why I would never make it as a magazine editor in Britain.
Fortunately, I would rather mother butterball babies than edit photos of them, so I’m not too broken up about my fate.
However, there are plenty of parents on both sides of the Atlantic who are irate about re-touched photos of plump tots being featured on the covers of international glossies.
According to reports, several British parenting magazines have admitted to regularly airbrushing images of their pint-sized cover models.
Industry insiders with loose lips spilled the beans about the baby airbrushing technique to The Sunday Telegraph and incensed a slew of parents and British health officials. Apparently, this is the first time anyone in the industry has publicly admitted using the technique to alter images of babies.
The Photoshopping practice was later confirmed in a BBC documentary, “My Supermodel Baby.” The show broadcast footage of 5-month-old Hadley Corbett’s photo shoot for Practical Parenting and Pregnancy magazine. Then, cameras kept rolling as a casting director explained how the photographs of the plump tot would be airbrushed: “We’ll lighten his eyes and his general skin tone, smooth out any blotches and the creases on his arms,” he said. “But we want it to look natural.”
The airbrushing technique was further explained by the magazine’s editor who, when asked whether lightening eyes, changing skin tone and removing creases of fat from photographs of babies were common practice, replied: “It is a photograph isn’t it, so you have to make sure that you are putting the baby across in the best light.”
Unfortunately, for the magazine’s editor, not everyone agreed with her statement.
Several notable British lawmakers and health experts expressed shock that baby images were being altered.
One politician, who aggressively campaigned against the use of airbrushing in magazines, said:
“People will be appalled that a magazine would not think images of beautiful healthy babies are alright as they are and instead have to conform to some standard. The idea that babies must look more perfect – that they can’t have creases in their skin – shows the obsession with a particular ideal. Where does this end?”
Meanwhile, health experts admitted to being “horrified” that the airbrushing technique is being used on babies.
Personally, I don’t have a problem with magazines airbrushing baby drool, red eyes, or tears, but why erase folds of fat? If you want a cover model minus the pudge, then book a slimmer kid and save yourself from the controversy.
What do you make of the airbrushing brouhaha?
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